By Prof Artwell Nhemachena
THE problem of treaties in Africa is that they have historically preceded colonisation and have been used as tools to colonise Africans.
Writing about the envisaged Pandemic Treaty, Al Jazeera, on March 30 2021, stated that: “The idea of such a treaty, aimed at tightening rules on sharing information and ensuring universal and equitable access to vaccines, as well as medicines and diagnostic for pandemics, was first floated late last year by European Council president Charles Michel…,WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and several world leaders – including British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame – threw their support behind the proposal[sic]”.
The point here is that it is strange that Western countries that refuse to pay reparations and restitution to African victims of enslavement and colonisation want to ensure universal and equitable access to vaccines, including to Africans.
Put differently, those that are refusing to ensure reparation and restitution to Africans are suggesting the ratification of a pandemic treaty which is supposed to ensure universal and equitable distribution of vaccines to Africans whom they are refusing universal reparations and restitution for enslavement and colonial wrongs.
During the so-called slave emancipation, enslaved Africans did not get any compensation; instead recompense went to the slave owners, and in the contemporary er, Africans have not been compensated for their land, livestock and other resources stolen during the colonial era.
The WHO Pandemic Treaty is meant to ‘force’ governments to implement pandemic measures given their lackluster adherence to WHO prescriptions in the past.
One would want to ask why the UN does not similarly introduce a treaty to force Western countries that have, for centuries, refused to or have not adhered to calls for restitution and reparations to African victims of enslavement and colonisation.
In other words, why seek to ensure the universality and equitable access to vaccines and not also the universal and equitable access to reparations and restitution for the crimes of enslavement and colonisation.
It is strange that in the 21st Century wherein Western transnational corporations are grabbing African land in the ongoing second scramble for Africa, Africans who are not allowed to have universal and equitable ownership and access to their land are only promised universal and equitable access to Western vaccines.
Africans who are demanding their land back are ignored or have sanctions imposed on them.
If Westerners were real saviours of Africans, they would have long set up a Reparation Treaty to force their countries to ensure justice through reparations.
The Africans’ agenda is not merely to get vaccinated by Western vaccines; rather the agenda for Africans is to get reparations and restitution for what they lost during the slave and colonial eras. These African concerns are not addressed by the Pandemic Treaty which only focuses on ensuring universal and equitable access to vaccines.
Even in Francophone West African countries, including Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Cameroon and Gabon, among others, the UN is quiet, and it is not helping Africans who are suffering from the French enforced ‘Colonial Pact’.
There is no UN equivalent of the Pandemic Treaty to force France and other Western countries to stop dispossessing and exploiting Africans.
Why are Western leaders quick to suggest that WHO adopts a Pandemic Treaty and silent on suggesting the UN also adopt a Reparation and Restitution Treaty to assist African victims of enslavement and colonisation.
It is not only the COVID-19 virus that has wreaked havoc in Africa, colonisation is also a pandemic from which Africans are still suffering.
When colonialists came to Africa, they dangled what they called Treaties of Friendship and Protection Treaties which they forced pre-colonial African chiefs and kings to sign as precursors to colonisation.
In other words, the so-called Protection Treaties and Treaties of Friendship gave Europeans the leverage to colonise Africans.
The treaties were masks behind which they hid their real intentions.
Europeans have historically used the decoy of treaties to colonise Africans, to dispossess Africans, to exploit Africans and to plunder the continent of Africa.
Treaties have seen Africans lose their sovereignty, autonomy, lands, mines, livestock and other resources.
As they say: Once bitten twice shy.
The discussion on WHO’s proposed Pandemic Treaty is fraught with tensions because of the ways in which treaties have been used as traps that have cut to the bone of Africa and other people of the global south.
Treaties have, historically, not been innocent, and one would surmise they are not innocent even in the 21st Century.
One can think of the Minsk Agreements between Russia and European states in which Russia was made to believe that the agreements were peace agreements when in fact they were meant to give Ukraine time to prepare for war with Russia.
The Ndebele King Lobengula was made to sign the Rudd Concession, which effectively provided Cecil John Rhodes with rights to colonise Zimbabwe. By the time Lobengula realised what had actually happened, he no longer had power and opportunity to reverse the situation.
Yet some 21st Century African leaders rush to sign treaties and agreements without sufficiently scrutinising the manifest and hidden intentions behind such treaties and agreements.
As the Shona people say: Guyu kutsvuka kunze mukati rine masvosve; treaties and agreements may appear benevolent, alluring and even irresistible but they need to be scrutinised sufficiently.
When contemporary Africans scrutinise that which is brought to them they are quickly accused of coming up with unfounded ‘conspiracy theories’.
When colonialists sat at the Berlin Conference, they did so to conspire against Africans.
In a world where the devious exist, it is presumptuous to label whistleblowers as conspiracy theorists.
African leaders cannot bury their heads in the sand and pretend there are no conspiracies against the continent.
Scrutiny is essential, particularly in the 21st Century where a lot is happening in terms of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Fifth Industrial Revolution, nanotechnology and biotechnology, genomics, editing and deleting genes, editing and deleting memories, reverse engineering human minds and so on.
As the Shona people say: Kuvhunduka chati kwatara hunge uine katurikwa.
If one has nothing to hide, then one has nothing to fear and will not dismiss whistleblowers as conspiracy theorists.
Put differently, even in pre-colonial Shona society, Africans had freedom of speech, freedom to express their opinions and those who sought to summarily dismiss and block others from expressing their freedoms were understood as having smelly fish to hide.
Africans need the freedom to critically discuss the many things that are going on in the world, including those that threaten their sovereignty and other freedoms.
When they express their opinions and freedoms of speech, they need not be summarily dismissed as conspiracy theorists.
Africans need robust engagements with what is going on in the Twenty-first century world.
Instead of quickly signing the Pandemic Treaty, African leaders would do well to reflect on the need for a Reparations and Restitution Treaty to precede the Pandemic Treaty.
Millions of Africans are dying because of colonial dispossession and impoverishment than because of the other pandemics.
Of course, like during the colonial era, Africans can be forced to sign the Pandemic Treaty, just as they were forced to sign the Treaties of Friendship and Protection Treaties.
After all, Africa is still regarded by Westerners as their protectorate.
African is still a health protectorate with no health sovereignty.
